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Church in a pagan world

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THE CHURCH IN A PAGAN WORLD
The world into which the Church was born was an ancient and highly
civilized world which was more of an international unity then any society which
has existed down to our own days. It was a world of cities, each of which enjoyed
some measure of self government under the all embracing sovreingnty of Rome, a
world in which all educated people talked a common language - Greek - and shared a
common culture. At first sight it seemed a prosperous and peaceful world. The
destructive wars, both wars of conquest and civil wars, which had brought so much
misery to the world in the last two centuries of the pre-Christian era, had now
come to an end and the Roman peace which Augustus had inagurated brought with it
not only economic prosperity but also the ideal, if not the complete realization,
of the Reign of Law.
Yet on the other hand, things were not so good as they looked at first sight.
For the whole social order rested on exploitation - the exploitation of the
provinces by Rome, the exploitation of the villages and the peasants by the cities
and finally on the existence of masses of people who were not merely underprivileged,
but lacking the most elementary human rights - slaves who were treated not as
human beings, but as chattels to be bought and. sold in the market place like cattle.
But in other respects this world was not unlike our own, especially in the
great cities, like Roma, Alexandria and Antioch which were its centers. These
were genuinely cosmopolitan cities, like New York is today and as very few capitals
in Europe have been. In them there was a similar mingling of peoples to that which
we find in New York, e.g.

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This image may be reproduced and used freely for the purposes of private study, scholarship or research without written permission. However, in order to use the digital reproductions for any other reason users must have the express written consent of the Department of Special Collections, University of St. Thomas Libraries, 2115 Summit Avenue, Saint Paul, MN 55105; (651) 962-5467, e-mail: uarchives@stthomas.edu

Transcript

THE CHURCH IN A PAGAN WORLD
The world into which the Church was born was an ancient and highly
civilized world which was more of an international unity then any society which
has existed down to our own days. It was a world of cities, each of which enjoyed
some measure of self government under the all embracing sovreingnty of Rome, a
world in which all educated people talked a common language - Greek - and shared a
common culture. At first sight it seemed a prosperous and peaceful world. The
destructive wars, both wars of conquest and civil wars, which had brought so much
misery to the world in the last two centuries of the pre-Christian era, had now
come to an end and the Roman peace which Augustus had inagurated brought with it
not only economic prosperity but also the ideal, if not the complete realization,
of the Reign of Law.
Yet on the other hand, things were not so good as they looked at first sight.
For the whole social order rested on exploitation - the exploitation of the
provinces by Rome, the exploitation of the villages and the peasants by the cities
and finally on the existence of masses of people who were not merely underprivileged,
but lacking the most elementary human rights - slaves who were treated not as
human beings, but as chattels to be bought and. sold in the market place like cattle.
But in other respects this world was not unlike our own, especially in the
great cities, like Roma, Alexandria and Antioch which were its centers. These
were genuinely cosmopolitan cities, like New York is today and as very few capitals
in Europe have been. In them there was a similar mingling of peoples to that which
we find in New York, e.g.